Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ulowell!m2c!wpi!ggray From: ggray@wpi.wpi.edu (Gary Gray) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Disk Crash! Keywords: reformatting Message-ID: <2316@wpi.wpi.edu> Date: 17 May 89 20:10:52 GMT Distribution: na Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Mass. Lines: 19 I have an actual IBM XT which has had a hard disk crash. Fortunatly, the hard disk was backed up the night before so the amount of data lost was zero. My problem now is reformatting the drive. Normal re-formats won't work because the partition information table seems to be wiped, so the computer doesn't even recognize that the drive is there. A freind told me that a low level format could be done on most hard drives by doing a "g c800:5" from debug in order to get to the hard disk controllers format routine. Unfortunatly this appears to not be supported on my IBM controller card, since this operation only hangs the computer and does nothing to the drive. Is there a different entry point for the IBM controller? Is there some easily obtainable (i.e. ftp) low level reformatter I can use? Is the failure of the call to c800:5 more ominous than it sounds? Thank you... -- WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE (sounds more impressive than it really is) _ |I-net ggray@wpi.wpi.edu / ar |/ |bitnet ggray@wpi.bitnet /_7 ra / |GEnie G.GRAY6